He Who Promised

Recently we had the pleasure of traveling to an astronomy park for a summer meteor shower. The weather forecast was rather unpromising, but as we had already made the reservations and taken the time off work, we went for it anyway. It was a rather cloudy night, with rain both earlier in the day and also later in the night, but the sky right above us was clear (thank you, Lord). When we first arrived, we really could only see the moon and what we later determined was most likely Jupiter. (Saturn is the other possibility). But as we laid there and twilight deepened into full dark, I was genuinely surprised by the number of stars that were visible. While I don’t consider myself to be a city girl by any means, it still requires deliberate effort to leave behind the light pollution.  (It also sparked sincere regret that the only constellation I can find with any certainty isn’t visible during the summer months.)

The literal thousands of stars I could see reminded me of Abraham, and his trust in the Lord. There wasn’t much light pollution to combat when the Lord told him that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars of heaven (Genesis 15:5, 22:17), though at the time of the original promise he had none. I love the phrasing of Romans 4:19-21 (KJV) – “And being not weak in faith, [Abraham] considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old……..He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” 

When it comes to the promises of God, sometimes they really do seem fantastical. The promise of full redemption; of restoration and rescue, not just in a spiritual sense, but in a real and tangible physical sense as well; of the defeat of not only the penalty and power of sin, but its very presence too; of no more mourning or cries of distress; of death being swallowed up in victory; of salvation from the wicked by the strong and mighty right hand of the Lord; of justice and mercy and avenging of injustice; of not “merely” protection for the foreigners, widows, and orphans, the marginalized and overlooked and oppressed, but of no need for protection; of freedom from the long-lived consequences of having sinned and being sinned against; of the former things being forgotten and no more coming to mind; of no longer dwelling in a land where we are strangers and foreigners, but living in the place of our citizenship……..All of these can seem unreal to us; and often in the broken world we live in, we too “hope against hope”, to borrow more phrasing from Paul (Romans 4:18), that these things will come true. They can seem as unlikely as a couple in their 90s having a child. Yet Abraham, when considering a fantastical promise from God, “staggered not” but was “fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform”. These promises are staggering to us. But not to the Lord. 

No, these promises, more than we can fully comprehend, are quite in keeping with the character of He whose every word is pure and true and declares Himself to be merciful, gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, and unchanging.

Another verse came to mind as I looked up at the heavens. Psalm 147:4 (ESV), “He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names.” If He not only can count the stars, but also decided exactly how many there would be; if He can name each one of them; ……then we too can say “He who promised is faithful” and “He will surely do it”. Surely. Not maybe. Not if He feels like it. Not if He can. But surely.  

For further reading: Isaiah 40:12-28; Job 38-41.